A separate study by the Petroleum Human Resources Council estimates about 39,000 workers will be needed in Canada alone to replace those who are expected to retire before 2020 just to maintain the status quo. The industry could need as many as 130,000 new hires by the end of the decade with more bullish oil and gas prices.

Already at least one analyst firm is scaling back its drilling activity forecast for 2012, in part because there aren't enough workers who can drill big, complicated wells. For now, NES Global Talent sees a depletion of skilled workers in oil and gas fields in the United States, Great Britain and Australia, three of the busiest oil and gas regions, will become a major problem.

Schlumberger, the largest oilfield services company in the world, sees significant negative effect from peak oil labor manifesting by 2015, a short three years from now, with increasing inexperienced oil professionals, and that the talent problem will only get worse.

For now, most forecasts expect crude prices would remain high in 2012, mostly due to the Iran tension. Meanwhile, OPEC just revised its 2012 world oil demand outlook slightly upwards citing a stable US economy and the shutdown of nuclear plants in Japan. So if the IMF prediction comes true, it seems the peak oil labor could be just enough to tip the scale for doubling in oil price scenario a lot sooner than year 2022.

Erratic government policies contribute significantly to the problem. When governments such as Japan and Germany arbitrarily decide to shut down a large industry such as nuclear power, what do they expect the skilled workers in that industry to do? And when later, these governments come running back with their tail between their legs, struggling to re-start the vital industry that they had earlier abandoned -- where will they find the skilled workers?

Arbitrary regulations and faux environmental policies in the coal, oil & gas, transportation, manufacturing, and mining sectors exact a similar cost from the future.

Finally, sky-high deficit spending along with high taxation make it difficult for young people to start families and raise children, while maintaining the quality of living to which they had grown accustomed in their own childhood. Governments are kicking the can of debt generations down the road, charging a demographic toll from future youth and adults which will not only exacerbate the skilled worker shortage, but will create an overall population shortage among all those who are not dependent upon welfare payments and government benefits.

This is the true peak, which actually represents multiple demographic peaks that are beginning to prove worrisome.